Seriously, if you literally starving to death because you can't find any job at all, why NOT walk into a Army/Navy/Air Force recruiting office and fill out the paperwork? Problems of food, clothing, shelter, are SOLVED!

Or try the Department of Corrections, for whatever reason quite a few people decide being locked in with convicted killers isn't what it's cracked up to be leading to high turnover, there's usually a positon open doing SOMETHING, again you get provided with clothes, you can eat the state tray, and a few institutions even have an option to live on the grounds.

In both cases, you're fed, you get clothes, the job comes with health insurance, and you get PAID on top of all this. So...why not give it a shot?

Seriously, if you literally starving to death because you can't find any job at all, why NOT walk into a Army/Navy/Air Force recruiting office and fill out the paperwork? Problems of food, clothing, shelter, are SOLVED!

Or try the Department of Corrections, for whatever reason quite a few people decide being locked in with convicted killers isn't what it's cracked up to be leading to high turnover, there's usually a positon open doing SOMETHING, again you get provided with clothes, you can eat the state tray, and a few institutions even have an option to live on the grounds.

In both cases, you're fed, you get clothes, the job comes with health insurance, and you get PAID on top of all this. So...why not get shot at?

Fixed.

GET A RED BELT OR DIE TRYIN'.

Originally Posted by Devil

I think Battlefields and I had a spirited discussion once about who was the biggest narcissist. We both wanted the title but at the end of the day I had to concede defeat. Can't win 'em all.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) early projections, the number of traffic fatalities fell three percent between 2009 and 2010, from 33,808 to 32,788

Source: nhtsa.gov

Meanwhile, from 2001-2011 (Warning! Source is wikipedia!) 1452 members of the armed forces were killed in Afghanistan.

Anyway, until we get the whole "brains in android bodies thing" figured out, everybody (bar one?) is going to die some day, and I for one would rather do so with some food and clothes on back, accomplishing something useful, than freezing to death under an overpass.

Right, incomparable stats between fatalities. Gotcha. Use a (soldier:fatality) vs a (road user:fatality) statistic. It is less obtuse.

Hey, I'm the guy that, faced with the possibility of becoming homeless and destitute, began the process of joining the military. It was only because I had a court imposed good behaviour bond on me that I was told I couldn't join until the bond was completed. HOWEVER, just the act of getting off my arse to join and realising I was mere months away from getting shot at in Iraq (it was during the initial stages of Iraqi Freedom or whatever the operation was called) meant I suddenly had the motivation and ambition to do something with myself and not let myself be dragged into a war zone, or into welfare. Being dragged into welfare might as well have dragged me into a war zone, because of my connections at the time I was likely to follow a distinctly violent criminal path.

So yeah, motivation? Good. Getting shot at? Not so good. I don't care what the stats are.

GET A RED BELT OR DIE TRYIN'.

Originally Posted by Devil

I think Battlefields and I had a spirited discussion once about who was the biggest narcissist. We both wanted the title but at the end of the day I had to concede defeat. Can't win 'em all.

Okay, that was dirty pool...and possibly dealing from the bottom of the deck as well.

It would be more a more meaningful comparison if I could get percentages for number of people in Afghanistan vs number of fatalties compared to number of road users vs number of fatalities, but I have no idea where such statistics might be found.

(Reminds me of a claim I heard that more people were shot in a year in New Orleans, Louisiana than Bagdad....but I'm *almost* sure that was an exaggeration)

Okay, that was dirty pool...and possibly dealing from the bottom of the deck as well.

It would be more a more meaningful comparison if I could get percentages for number of people in Afghanistan vs number of fatalties compared to number of road users vs number of fatalities, but I have no idea where such statistics might be found.

(Reminds me of a claim I heard that more people were shot in a year in New Orleans, Louisiana than Bagdad....but I'm *almost* sure that was an exaggeration)

Getting shot at in Iraq isn't that big a deal. The number of times they're even close to you is extremely low.